HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Colossians 1:12-14

….giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,

 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Happy thanksgiving everyone! Never forget to be thankful for the ultimate gift that God has given us. He has rescued us from our bondage to sin, and offers us full forgiveness. When we decide to accept the forgiveness that Christ has provided, we are given the privilege to be His children!

So as you enjoy your family, friends, rest, and turkey, don’t forget to thank the Lord for His everlasting love! We don’t deserve it, but He gives it freely. To show true gratefulness, don’t wait any longer to accept His free gift. If you already have, share it with some who hasn’t, today!

Have a great Thanksgiving!

INVISIBLE YET REAL

Ephesians 6:12, 13 

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

The spiritual evil that we see spoken of in this verse is something that we as humans are not fully able to wrap our minds around or really even begin to imagine. It is a power that cannot be matched or defeated by anything or anyone on this earth. Though we may start to think as a human race, that we are all-powerful, we realize soon enough no matter how much physical strength we have, it is truly worthless in spiritual warfare.

There is a real battle going on in the spiritual realm. As spiritual beings, we must never blow off the reality of spiritual warfare in our lives. And it must never be something to think of as a fairy tale. Not only is it real, but it is more dangerous and more intense than we can even start to understand.

As people, we try to build up our self-confidence with pride, power, and the riches of this world. We are deceived by ourselves into thinking that they will make us feel like someone more in control of or more important than others. It is not until we come up against this spiritual evil, which tramples us with no trouble, that we realize how incapable we are against it.

God doesn’t just allow us to have this helpless feeling for no reason. This feeling of incapability is actually a tool that He uses to point us to himself, to help us to realize how much we need Him. People will say that Christianity is just a “crutch”. But no, we can see that it is much more than that. We are given the privilege to trust the Lord as our Savior. We are given the honor to take on the armor which He has provided for us. We are also blessed with the assurance, that the same God, who created us, is also our closest and most personal protector. Through Him we are able to stand! This is a truth that does not deserve to be mocked!

UNENDING STRENGTH

Isaiah 40:28-31

Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.

He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.

Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

We as Christians, usually find this verse uplifting, inspiring, and promising. But if that is all we take away from reading this verse, a good feeling, we are missing the point of the promise that the Lord is trying to present to us. He didn't just write awesome words like this in His “love letter” to us, to make us feel good momentarily. He gave us these promises to be able to find strength that allows us to be able live life to the fullest.

Before we can fully understand this strength, we have to realize that sin has ruined our view of life, and causes many of us to suffer the feeling of being weary and weak. This makes us come to the conclusion that there is no reason to continue living life. If we fall into thinking that we have no purpose in living, and surviving seems to be a waste of time, giving up on life does seem to be the better option. This is the feeling of defeat. When Christians walk around feeling defeated, we are allowing the enemy to beat us down and use us for evil instead of being used by God for His glory. When the world sees Christians living this way, they are turned away from the truth of the gospel, and have no desire to be part of a life that has no more hope than they do.

Knowing the full power of Christ’s strength in our lives is not natural to human beings. But as spiritual beings that have been renewed in Christ, we see how to find unending strength in reading the verse above. We are to WAIT ON THE LORD. What does that mean exactly? The simple answer is this: surrender your full life to God, put full faith and trust in the fact that He has control over all, and completely accept and take ownership in the strength that the Lord offers. Yes, this may seem impossible, and not exactly something to be called “simple”. But the cool thing is that He does not expect us to lean on ourselves, and learn how to “wait on him” alone, but to ask Him to be our Helper. This is when we will be able to mount up with wings like eagles, and will be able to live with strength and stability that sadly many Christians are unable to grasp.

NEVER ALONE

Hebrews 13:5   

… be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.

There are two different types of loneliness that we as people can experience. The first type is when we are truly alone, with no one around and we feel that we cannot be happy unless we are in the presence of other people. The other type is when we are in a large group of people, and may even have many in that group we would call friends, yet we do not feel fulfilled by their company, and still feel as though we are alone.

When we look at these two types of loneliness we realize that they have something in common. This is that we are longing for something that can only be granted by God. That would be security. We try so hard to find security and strength in ourselves or in others. We forget that we are finite and temporary beings, and are only able to understand a very small part of God’s huge plan. We get frustrated or even mad at God when things get tough, because we don’t understand why God allows certain situations to happen. We must learn to trust and find full security in the one who knows all. He understands everything, loves each of his children more than we can fathom, and promises to never leave nor forsake us.

To force ourselves to rest in God’s perfect security is humanly impossible. But if you read near the end of the verse written above, you see that we have a Helper. We have the privilege to go boldly before our great and powerful God, and ask Him to help us, to fully rely on Him, so that we may have nothing to fear. When we allow God to teach us to trust him, our loneliness will be needless. We will be able to know the comfort of security, found in the Master of all that ever was, is, or is to come. He didn’t make His promise “I will never leave nor forsake you” for nothing!! He meant it!

 We are NEVER alone.